


Apastron

by orphan_account



Category: Stray Kids (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Non-Famous, Boys In Love, Chan lives in Seoul, Chanlix Skyping and being in love, Established relationship: ChanLix, Felix lives in Sydney, Fluff and Mush, I wouldn’t mislead u, If this flops berry posted it, Long-Distance Relationship, M/M, Romantic Fluff, Sappy Ending, Skype calls, Slice of Life, a heaping slice of life right here, and then they fall asleep together, contrary to the summary, its cute tho trust moi, its kinda bittersweet but thats abt it, lol i wanna delete my works but instead of doing that I’m posting this instead uwu, no angst to speak of, they just love and miss each other a lot, this actually isnt sad, what a power move (sarcasm)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-15
Updated: 2020-03-15
Packaged: 2021-02-28 21:01:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,271
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23163670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Apastron; noun, New Latin. Plural; Apastra. The point of greatest separation between two stars.Chan and Felix are in a long distance relationship, and it's not easy. Not easy at all. But they love each other. And when you love each other you make things work, despite the gap between continents. In defiance of the miles of ocean keeping them apart, they make it work.Even when that ends up with them falling asleep together during a routine Skype call, on opposite ends of their webcams.
Relationships: Bang Chan/Lee Felix
Comments: 10
Kudos: 65





	Apastron

Chan lives in Seoul. In a bustling metropolis, shiny and sparkling and always _moving._ Cars and trains and subways, Seoul is alive as if a living, breathing organism beneath his feet.

****

Felix lives in Sydney. In a sleepy suburb outside the city outskirts. The air is thick and balmy and the sky is a flurry with flocks of technicolor wild parrots and ruddy kookaburras. The grass is green green green and the clouds puffy and white and idyllic. Their homes couldn't be more different. 

****

They're separated by continents. Kept apart by boundaries and maps and the stretch of sea between their borders. Longitude and latitude working in tandem to keep their hands empty of the other’s fingers. 

****

Chan wishes he could live with Felix, back in Australia. He wishes he could pack up his studio apartment in Gangnam and leave his boxy little home far behind. He would leave it all, to be with his love.

****

Australia is Chan’s home, where his family and friends and _childhood_ is. But more than that, Australia is where _Felix_ is. Where his own personal sun hangs in the sky, putting the Aurora Australis to shame with his beauty. His freckled sun, that is kept out of Seoul’s atmosphere by countless nautical and astronomical miles. 

****

Seoul is cold and grey and empty without Felix’s light. The sun is dim and frosty without his heat.

****

But they make do, in their own special way. Long distance relationships aren't easy; notoriously so. They knew what they were getting into, when Chan’s job moved him across the ocean and into the heart of Seoul.

****

They make do, and they understood the territory, but that doesn't make it any easier. 

****

The bright blue program on Chan’s laptop began to come to life, sending bright notes and pings into the static silence of his apartment. Chan perked up, from where he was slouching in his rolling chair.

****

Soon, the screen of his laptop is not blue and white and artificial at all. Soon, all he sees are freckles and a button nose and a pink smile he would sacrifice _anything_ to kiss. Rounded cheeks he would pay any sum to cup under his palms. 

****

“Felix!” Chan exclaimed, as he leaned closer to his computer. He rolled his chair flush into the lip of his desk, until the edge of the plywood began to dig into his chest. He didn't care; he just leaned even closer towards the screen. Until his wide eyes are swimming with _Felix, Felix, Felix._

****

“Hey, Channie.” 

****

Felix’s voice is so deep and velvety, but it's slightly granular through the crackle of his laptops’s outdated speakers. It made Chan’s stomach pinch, hearing the layer of echo chasing each of Felix’s words. Like a starving fox after a hare, his beautiful voice sounds so fundamentally different when altered by wiring and glass and primary color retina displays. 

****

Chan wishes he was there. With him. Not gazing into the polished eye of a webcam. 

****

Chan fought down the urge to bend forward, knocking over his stapler and tape dispenser, and place a wet smooch on the screen. Right on Felix’s cute little nose, still visibly splattered with freckles even through the muddled quality of his webcam. But he didn't. Because his screen is dirty enough as is, and he doesn't need a damp kiss mark to blur Felix’s face anymore than it already is.

****

Felix is still so beautiful, even through the thumb-print smudges on his webcam. Even through the harsh back-lighting of the Australian sun outlining his body in diffused white. Even through the oily swirls of Chan’s own finger pads on his screen, Felix is stunning. 

****

He wants to hold him, to card familiar hands through his muddy pink hair. Last time Chan and Felix Skyped, his boyfriend’s hair was bright, cherry red. Now it's pastel, like cotton candy and the foam on a glass of strawberry milk. Chan is missing so much. Not just missing _him_ but missing _things._ Missing how the red seeps from the strands with each wash and leaves milky pink in its wake. 

****

“I miss you,” Chan said it like a familiar lyric to a song, and he unconsciously brought up a finger to trace the curve of Felix’s jaw. He softly stroked down his screen, following the elegant dip of Felix’s sharp jaw meeting his neck. He left more finger-print smudges, clouding the already blurred stream of his boyfriend. 

****

Felix smiled, and it was brighter than the Sydney sun illuminating him from behind. The rays are sending a halo of light through his hair, the pink tips glowing ghostly white. 

****

“I miss you too, Channie.” 

****

Chan felt his own lips pull upwards, even though it hurt. Hurt his heart and his chest, made his eyes sting. He would've cried, had Felix not been grinning and him through the barrier of a computer screen. 

****

“Oh, Channie!” Felix quipped, perhaps at the sight of the light fading in the older Aussie’s eyes. Apparent, even through the darkness in his room. “You won't _believe_ what happened to me yesterday! So me and my sister went to Strathfield, and then–”

****

Chan basked in Felix’s light. He reveled in his warmth, as if it physicality radiated off his laptop like a digital space heater. Chan was so cold, but now he feels warmth creeping up his ankles. Sliding up the fleece of his track pants before roosting within his heart. It felt like a hug, Felix’s happiness. Like his joy became a corporeal entity and wrapped Chan in its velveteen arms.

****

Felix smiled and laughed as he recounted his story, and Chan couldn't do anything besides genuinely mimic his joy. Joy of just being alive. Euphoria in the fact he's _looking_ at Chan. They're not together physically, but they're _seeing_ each other. Talking to each other, bantering and joking as if the thousands of miles between them are no more than a suggestion of distance.

****

With their time difference, Seoul is still relatively bright and azure. The sun hangs low, casting beams of molten yellow across the polished panels of the all-glass skyscrapers outside Chan’s apartment. The sky is gradually becoming muted and darker outside his window, as Chan kept his eyes entranced on nothing but Felix. 

****

In Sydney, however, the sun long-since set behind Felix’s back. Chan saw it slink down his window, before dipping beneath the sill. The sky turned grainy orange as afternoon turned to night, highlighting Felix's body in a gilded sheath of ethereal light. He appears as an angel, descended from Heaven to keep Chan’s lonely heart from eating itself alive. 

****

Chan is the president of the Lonely Hearts Club of Seoul. It's a one-man operation. Felix, of course, being the captain of the Sydney division. He's the only member. 

****

Until their eyes meet, through the hazy guise of their webcams, and the ache in their hearts is satiated. Temporarily. The relief is so fleeting that even the joy of seeing the other is tainted by the heartache laying just outside their browser and mousepads. Until they click the _call end_ button, and the melancholia rushes them like a beast. A hungry animal, prowling in wait until it can get Chan or Felix alone. It swallows them like a suffocating wave, filling up matching lungs with the kind of emotional sear that only being separated by an ocean can create. 

****

Everything about their respective homes are so different. Seoul is monochromatic. Sydney is verdant. Seoul pulsates with life and music no matter the hour. Sydney’s soundtracks are the songs of the wild birds and the wind snaking through branches of withered gum trees. Seoul is neon. Sydney is lush. Even the time is different between cities, as if the gaping maw of the continental divide wasn't jarring enough. 

****

Chan can't even experience the same sunset as Felix. _With_ Felix. Because his won't happen for another hour at least. Maybe even more, with how the sun seems to be leering at him personally from behind a nearby block of offices. 

****

“And we almost missed our stop, because we were laughing so hard!” Felix is still chirping away about the antics he and his sister got into on their trip to Strathfield. His voice is deep and husky but still melodic. Still milky like heavy cream. Still tactile in its velvety smooth tenor, each word like a slip of luxuriate fabric between Chan’s hands. 

****

His hands that are empty. Cold. Pale, whereas Felix’s tiny hands are tanned from prolonged exposure to the Aussie sun. He wishes he had a familiar set of smaller fingers to hold onto. To squeeze and never let go of. 

****

Chan shook the implacable yet _very_ placeable sadness from his head, and focused his attention where it belongs. On Felix.

****

“That's crazy, babe!” Chan quipped, and he mellowed back into his cushioned rolling chair. Felix is sitting pretty at his desk; body cradled in his extravagant red and black gaming chair. Expensive, with a brand name embroidered onto the center panel of plush leather. With a cushioned neck rest and all.

****

Felix doesn't even play games. Not seriously, at least. He's no professional gamer, _that's_ for certain.

****

The only game Felix plays with true vehemence is Stardew Valley. Chan has a feeling he wouldn't need such a... _serious gamer_ chair to accomplish planting pixelated veggies in a garden. But Chan is by no means judging. 

****

If Chan looks past Felix–but why would he?–he'd be able to see his bed pushed against the far wall; Legend of Zelda comforter made neat and tucked under his double set of pillows. Chan has been in that bed. Limbs lovingly entangled with Felix’s as they gazed up at the glow in the dark stars tacked onto his ceiling. Chan misses it.

****

He misses a lot. All the time. 

****

Adjacent to Felix’s bedside table is his three-tiered display shelf, also flush to the wall. If Chan squinted, and hooked his gaze over Felix's shoulder, he'd be able to make out a majority of the figurines sat neat and pretty on the plastic tiers. A small plush of Totoro, mouth agape. Dragon Ball Z musclemen, clearly summoning power in their dramatic stances alone. Cat-eared school girls wearing pink argyle sweaters and pleated skirts. Not inherently sexualized. Just cute. Felix likes cute things.

****

That's why he likes Chan so much, as he so often says. Much to Chan's mock-chagrin. 

****

Felix’s room is eclectic yet orderly. Organized chaos, peppered with starry-eyed anime posters and cardstock postcards printed with dreamy font and watercolor cherry blossoms. Cartoons of Namsan Tower and artfully abstract representations of Han river snaking through the city like a liquid python. Most read, _Seoul; Wish You Were Here._ And boy, does Chan ever.

****

That's his only wish. For Felix to be _here._ Or for him to be _there._ He's not picky, when it comes to things like this.

****

Chan’s studio-slash-oversized-closet isn't nearly as colorful as Felix’s room. In fact, Chan’s apartment is hardly personalized whatsoever. The only identifying features that _Chan_ lives there include but are not limited to the pile of producing equipment in the back corner. Vintage, art-deco lithographs of Sydney that hang on the grey plaster walls. Blips of nouveau vibrancy in comparison to Chan’s otherwise drab appointments. One reading _Kangaroo Island_ is plastered right above his bed, the creamy paper hovering mere inches from his headboard. There's a small, thumb-sized plush koala on his desk. A tiny Australian flag is shoved into his cylindrical pen holder, unfurled in the midst of ball points and fountain tips. 

****

There's polaroids of a familiar freckled face smiling beside him, from Fuji Instax sheets tapped along the walls. Rosy cheeks and kiss-reddened lips dulled from too much exposure from the flash. Scrunched noses and eyes hidden as the shutter was pressed in a fit of dopey laughter. A constellation of nostalgia across the walls. A literal paper trail of sentimentality. 

****

Sometimes Chan gazes at those polaroids when he can't sleep. Which, given Chan’s tireless schedule, is _often._ Eyes glassy and heart firing off in his chest as if trying to drag him head long into the photo itself. Sometimes Chan presses the tips of his fingers into the film, as if he'd be able to slip through the glossy coating and back into that precious moment. He's yet to find himself magically transported to easier, simpler times with just the pad of his pointer fingers ghosting across film paper. Suffice it to say, Chan has yet to tumble through a three inch polaroid and find himself with back Felix. Back home. 

****

Back—it's a word with terrifying connotations. Back means regressing. Back means stumbling. People don't _want_ to go back. Humanity’s very prerogative is to constantly move _forward._ To keep advancing and bettering and improving. And yet in steps Chan; he wants to go back. Back to when he could wake up with Felix cuddled up in his arms and heart-to-heart in their proximity. Back to when he _wasn't here._ Back to when he was _there._

****

But that's the jist of his place, in its stark and unassuming essence. That's it, when it comes to Chan designing his Seoul studio. That's all he truly felt he needed. 

****

His apartment came pre-furnished, anyways.

****

He got his jumbled focus back on track, and turned his attention to Felix.

****

On the second level of the open-air shelving is a framed picture. Right between a polished Gundam fighter and a resin replica of Jiji from Kiki’s Delivery Service. It's small, no bigger than Chan’s palm. The frame is simple. Matte black. He knows what the subject of the photograph is, without even having to squeeze his eyes closed for clarity. 

****

It's a photograph of them. It’s Felix and Chan, in each other's arms in front of the opera house in Darling Harbour. Aussie perfection, captured in a single shot. Felix insisted Chan take the framed photo to Seoul with him; as a token to remember him by, his boyfriend had reasoned. 

****

Chan shot the proposition down immediately. He doesn't need a smiling picture of them in front of a stereotypical Australian landmark to keep Felix in his thoughts. He doesn't _need_ anything to “remember him by”. Because Chan doesn't plan on forgetting anytime soon. He doesn't plan on giving his brain any opportunity to _need_ something to _remember Felix by._

****

So the framed photo still stands on Felix's middle shelf, propped up from behind and reflecting the evening gleam off the glass. 

****

Chan is itching for more. More Felix. More of his endearing anecdotes from Sydney, about almost missing train stops and making all-day treks to a cafe only to find it’s closed on _just_ that day of the week. He needs more, as if Felix's voice and his doe eyes staring at _him_ but not truly _at_ him will save Chan.

****

Save him from what?

****

Chan doesn't even know. Maybe from the perpetual sting in his chest cavity, shaped like kitten lips and pair of dainty hands. Freckles tattooed across the valves of his heart, sparkling irises staring at him whenever he lays down to sleep at night. 

****

“Tell me more, please? About home.”

****

Chan didn't need to elaborate, but he's synonymous with TMI. _Too Much Information_ might as well be his middle name. 

****

Felix’s beaming grin softened. Became tender. Almost sad.

****

His thick lips pursed into a–possibly unconscious–pout, as he said, “of course, babe. I have a lot of new stories, but,” Felix paused, sucking in a staticy breath, “home isn't the same without you.” 

****

Chan was about to respond; something cheesy and corny about how Felix is the missing piece of his body’s visceral jigsaw puzzle. Something waxing poetic about how Felix is his soulmate. His person. How they'll be together, no matter what life or passages on maps or two-hour time differences throw at them. 

****

But he didn't get a chance. Because Felix dove head first into a brand new tale. He shifted gears so fast, from subdued to electric in nanoseconds, that Chan would have sworn their Skype call froze and then stuttered back to life. But that didn't happen. He'd been watching Felix, remiss to take his eyes off him even for a mandatory blink. The livestream didn't spasm or glitch. Felix just knows when to change proverbial lanes. He knows when the sadness begins to well up within them both, and when it's lapping at their lips and their eyes and their hearts. 

****

“Channie, babe, I went to _the_ best bubble tea place yesterday! It was in...well I don't remember where it was, but that's not important! I had ube milk tea, Channie, and it was _so_ good. Have you ever had ube before?” 

****

“I haven't, babe.” Chan doesn't even know what it is. He wrote a note in his phone to make a compulsory search through google later. 

****

Felix perked up, and glitter zipped across his eyes. He slapped tiny hands to the shiny white of his desk, stubby fingers splayed. He scooted forward in his plush, extravagant gaming chair. Rolling closer to the webcam. Closer to Chan, as far as technology will permit.

****

“We should go together, when you come home!” 

****

“That sounds amazing, love. I'll be home soon.” 

****

It's a lie. Objectively, because Chan has _no_ idea when he'll be back in Sydney–permanently, at least. The project he'd been assigned is far from over, and he'd be lucky if he can get a measly week of vacation time in the interim. But that's not important. What's important is that Chan _will_ be home with Felix, one day. _Soon._ Soon, if it kills him. Mark his fucking words. 

****

He's going to get goddamn ube bubble tea with Felix if it's the last thing he does on earth. And he still doesn't know what the damn stuff is. 

****

“Oh, oh! Chan!” Felix continued, as if sensing the rise in Chan’s spirits; at the simple and equally silent thoughts of visiting Felix and Sydney in the near future. The not so distant future. The future that could be tomorrow, or the next day, or next week. Or, more realistically, when his job permits. 

****

Oh, the joys of late capitalism. 

****

“Yes, baby?” Chan spurred his love to keep on. Felix’s voice sounds like birds chirping in his ears. Like a fantasy. 

****

“I saw _such_ a cute dog today! It was super small and pudgy—maybe it was a corgi? I'm bad at remembering breed names, but it was _so_ cute and I meant to take a picture for you but I forgot because it was so cute and–” 

****

Chan's doing that thing again. That thing where he half-spaces out, half-commits every word to messily tumble from Felix’s lips to memory. Felix speaks without breaks, without time to collect his next thoughts or pause for a gulp of oxygen, and it could verge on overwhelming. But Chan is used to this; to Felix living and breathing nothing but _happiness._ His boyfriend’s zest for life is contagious, and Chan found heat bubbling up behind his ribs and forcing giggles from his throat. He didn't even know what he was laughing at. 

****

“It's okay, baby. Take a pic for me next time, though?” _Even though seeing your face is enough for me._

****

Felix winked, and held up a pinky to the webcam. His finger is so tiny. Even through the screen, even with it held flush to the lens, Chan couldn't help but chuckle at its diminutive stature. 

****

“It's a promise! Promise you'll send me a pic of any cute dog you see in Seoul?” 

****

Chan smiled, and the angle of his lips effectively chased out whatever shadows were lurking at the base of his skull, waiting to claw their way up his brain stem until they poison his thoughts with blades dipped in longing. With just one smile, and one look into Felix’s eyes, Chan is okay. Just like that.

****

Chan held up a pinky of his own, bringing it to his own webcam lense and clinking the digit against the tech. A toast, of sorts. “It's a promise, ‘Lix.” 

****

Felix seemed appropriately satisfied. And so they continued. 

****

They talked, and talked until Chan’s eyes started to sting. Talked about this and that, about everything and nothing. Chan caught Felix up on the happenings in Seoul, but the city is significantly more boring than vibrant Sydney. 

****

In spite of their time difference, Seoul and Sydney are now fully bathed in night. Skyscrapers twinkle like brick and mortar galaxies outside Chan’s window. Felix’s room is dark with the absence of the sun, but his figure is still illuminated with the technicolor glow of his backlit-rainbow keyboard. Fluorescence and strips of LEDs shine muted spotlights on the tender set to Felix’s lips. Reflecting candy colors off the coat of gloss on his lips. They've taken a temporary pause from bantering, content to bask in nothing but the knowing their the other is _there._ On the other side of a camera. Not there, but still _there._

****

Except, one _slight_ hiccup appeared, as their loving silence dragged longer and longer. Chan’s lids began to droop, in tandem with a yawn stretching Felix’s lips. He covered it with a dainty fist, and Chan still felt the urge to link their fingers despite the screens blocking their intimacy. 

****

Chan felt himself swaying. Falling into a lucid dream as Felix propped a pudgy cheek on an equally fleshy hand.

****

“And...and then, we…” Felix’s voice is stretching like reams of rubber. Each syllable wispy and flimsy like cobwebs between Chan’s ears. Like strings of cotton candy on his tongue. 

****

Chan’s eyes fluttered shut, giving respite to the burning of his retina. He doesn't remember shutting his peepers, but he did so without the guiding touch of conscious decision. It was as if something primal, something from antiquity, took Felix’s presence on the screen into account. Calculated the weight and comfort of his aura seeping through the screen, and solved an equation. Chan is safe. He can close his eyes. 

****

Chan closed his eyes, and breathed. Breathed, as if it were his first time ever to do so. His heart is content and tranquil after spending hours with Felix, free from fang-toothed longing and barbed wire loneliness. He's free, as the artificial light from Felix’s room invades his own studio, and places indirect kisses of neon across his cheek bones. He’s happy, under the light of his own little sun. 

**_  
  
  
  
  
  
_ **

Sunlight cut through the darkness behind Chan’s eyes. Like sharpened knives, the pillars of light burned through his cornea in spite of the protection of his lids.

****

Chan groaned, and became acutely aware of the uncomfortable ridge of plastic keys digging into his forehead. 

****

He lifted his head off his...keyboard? 

****

Chan fell asleep on his keyboard; he raised a hand up, and ghosted fingers over the square divots pressed into the flesh behind his fringe. There's even a small puddle of drool adjacent to the space bar. 

****

Chan stretched, relishing in the audible pops of his joints cracking. His back is slightly sore from slumping over on his desk all night, but he'll manage. He'll make do. It's in his very DNA to do just that. 

****

His brain is still murky from sleep, but then his gaze slunk to his screen. His computer is still very much on; undoubtedly drained of the majority of its battery life after Chan’s dip into slumber. There's a forehead-smashed string of nonsense in the search bar, a leftover gift from Chan's impromptu snooze. _Ksjdnajdhfh,_ Chan can only assume the accidental line of letters match the buttons indented into his skin. 

****

But that's not what caught his attention.

****

It seems he wasn't the only one to succumb to exhaustion during their Skype call.

****

Felix is sound asleep, pudgy cheek pillowed on his folded arms. His lips are parted, and a thin stream of drool pooled into the crook of his elbow. Chan could see it, even through the pixelated quality of the laptop camera. Eyes soft and features completely even, Chan couldn't help but coo at the sight. He looks so cute. So at peace. Chan squinted the sleep out of his eyes, and leaned closer to his computer screen. 

****

He doesn't want to miss a moment.

****

He misses Felix so much. Misses the feeling of his smaller frame under Chan’s arms. Misses the rise and fall of his chest, misses the jewels in his eyes and the starlight smattering of freckles across his cheeks.

****

But they make it work. 

****

“I love you, Felix.” Chan whispered, in the pin drop silence of his bedroom. His laptop clock reads 8:09 a.m. It's early; in Seoul. It's slightly less early in Sydney, but both cities are still fully in the throes of morning. The sun is back behind Felix, high above his open drapes and casting his body in afternoon light. He’s beautiful, and Chan doesn't want to wake Felix up. He doesn't want to bid farewell to the sight of the love of his life snoozing so peacefully. 

****

Felix is still sleeping serenely in Sydney, across the ocean and over continents and country lines. Chan had murmured the admission of love under his breath, but as he gazed lovingly at Felix snoring away on his desk, he swears he saw it. An unconscious quirk at the corner of plump lips, still glossy despite the dry heat of Australia. 

****

Chan swears he saw Felix smile. 

****

His own lips pulled up, crooked and lopsided from nothing but the sugary sweet love coursing through his veins. 

****

It's hard.

****

But they make it work. 

**Author's Note:**

> I literally did not plan on posting this today until a few hours ago, soooo yeah I couldn’t come up w anything creative for the end notes.....chanlix, amiright?
> 
> Anyways I know this is sub par but I crave validation so ur kudos+comments rlly mean the world to me! I’m going thru some writers block n I haven’t written anything in like a week so some motivation would be greatly appreciated ovo


End file.
